Ida Lupino: A Biography by William Donati

Ida Lupino: A Biography
by William Donati

Paperback ISBN: 9780813196480

January 2023

University Press of Kentucky

360 pages

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Powell's

“Emotionally, Ida was a jumble of contradictions, infused with the polarity often present in intensely creative individuals.” — William Donati

Ida Lupino is one of the great outliers of the film industry. In a time when there were limited roles for women except for being an actress or writer, Lupino managed not only take on both roles but to also add director, producer and businesswoman to her list. To modern age audiences she's a feminist icon. But in reality Ida Lupino was a walking contradiction. Even as a pioneer female filmmaker who was fiercely independent she held onto traditional values when it came to gender roles. She leveraged her fame to advance her career but also advocated for her privacy. Some regarded her as a warm person and others pointed out her iciness. Lupino was not about to be pigeonholed into a single category of any kind. She was a complex person and unapologetically herself.

Originally published in 1997, William Donati's book Ida Lupino: A Biography chronicles the life of an actress-filmmaker who lived her entire life in show business. The book was originally meant to be Lupino's autobiography written with the help of Donati. But the project stalled and when Lupino died in 1995 Donati moved forward with a more traditional biography. The book was recently reissued this year by the University Press of Kentucky but I haven't been able to confirm if any notable changes were made to the original text.

The book begins with Ida Lupino's formative years as a member of the Lupino showbiz family, her close bonds with her father Stanley and mother Connie, her move from the UK to Hollywood to pursue a career as a film actress and her early days a Paramount contract star playing ingenue roles and her bout with polio. We learn about her friendship with Thelma Todd and the events of that fateful night when Todd mysteriously died (the author had also written a book about Todd). Then there were Ida Lupino's marriages to actor Louis Hayward, writer and filmmaker Collier Young and her particularly tumultuous relationship with Howard Duff which are all discussed at length. The author offers only brief glimpses into Lupino's mental health struggles and her fraught relationship with her daughter Bridget Duff. Almost every film that Lupino acted in and a majority of her television work is discussed. Her work with The Filmakers—the production company she started with her husband Collier Young— and the more involved projects she made while at Warner Bros. get the most coverage.

Some interesting facts I learned from the book:

• Lupino was such a perfectionist that she often drove herself to exhaustion, illness and/or injury.
• She greatly admired anyone who took the business seriously and preferred to work with people were as driven as she was.
• Producer Mark hellinger stepped in to vouch for Lupino so she would get cast in the film They Drive by Night (1940). That film as well as High Sierra (1941) became breakout roles for both Ida Lupino and her co-star Humphrey Bogart.
• Ann Sheridan and Lupino often got the same types of roles and replaced each other in different projects. For example, when Lupino turned down a role in King's Row (1942), it went to Ann Sheridan.
• When Jack Warner offered her a 7 year contract he told her she'd be another Bette Davis for Warner Bros.
• To prepare for Moontide (1942), Lupino took French actor Jean Gabin on a tour of the seedier parts of Los Angeles for a "first-hand look at vice and violence."
• The Hard Way (1943) and Devotion (1946) were two of Lupino's most challenging productions due to complications with the studio, WWII and Stanley Lupino's death from cancer.
• Agent Charles K. Feldman sought Lupino as a client and even bought the rights to Road House (1948) and sold them to Twentieth Century Fox with the stipulation that Lupino be cast in the lead.
• Lupino enjoyed working with The Breen Office and welcomed their changes which she didn't view as censorship but rather as improvements.
• For her hard-hitting drama Not Wanted (1949), which she produced and eventually directed, she couldn't use the title "Unwed Mother" because it was too salacious. But the restrictions did not apply to marketing materials so she plastered UNWED MOTHER in bold type in various newspaper ads to promote the movie.
• She fostered new talent by casting Sally Forrest and Keefe Braselle in Not Wanted (1949) and Never Fear (1950).
• Lupino and Young struck a deal with Howard Hughes to partner on three films between RKO and The Filmakers production company. Lupino was one of the few executives Hughes would actually agree to meet with directly. 
• While the Motion Picture Association objected to the making of The Hitch-Hiker (1953), Lupino and The Filmakers went ahead with the production. Lupino had already gotten permission from prisoner Billy Cook and the two men he kidnapped. Their story was the basis of the movie.
• Many of us know that The Bigamist (1953) had Lupino starring and directing in a film that also included her ex-husband Collier Young and his new wife Joan Fontaine. While that seems like it would have been an uncomfortable situation, Lupino and her third husband Duff were friendly with Young and Fontaine and the couples often spent time with each other.
• According to the author, "with The Bigamist, Ida Lupino became the first woman to direct herself in a major motion picture."
• Lupino was quick to adapt and in the early 1950s that meant transitioning to television. She insisted that her husband Howard Duff be her co-star in the TV sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. The story idea was developed by her ex-husband Collier Young.
• Producer William Frye personally chose Ida Lupino to direct which would be her last production The Trouble with Angels (1966). They originally wanted to cast Greta Garbo but couldn't get her out of retirement and was replaced by Rosalind Russell.
• I love this quote from Rosalind Russell about Lupino: "The sex of a director doesn't mean a hoot. The one all-important thing is talent. Somehow it has evolved that directing is a man's profession. A woman has a tough, almost impossible time breaking down this caste barrier. Miss Arzner managed it. Ida is doing it now."

This biography suffers from inherent bias which was to be expected considering the book began its life as Lupino's autobiography. It's clear that the author very much admires and respects his subject. Lupino is treated with reverence but some of the more superfluous language feels cloying. However, the author does not shy away from exploring Lupino's self-destructive behavior, her contradictions and her co-dependent relationships with men. I was frustrated with some of the outdated language used and wondered if in this new edition some of that could have been edited out.

Ida Lupino: A Biography by William Donati is a mixed bag. While it offers the reader plenty of interesting information and a cohesive outline of Lupino's extraordinary career, it's plagued by some odd choices in narrative. I would recommend this anyone who is interested in learning more about Lupino. It's a good starting point it covers a lot of territory in just under 300 reading pages. Some of the more personal aspects of Lupino's life probably wouldn't have been revealed had it not been for the author's friendship with Lupino. There are some insights here that the reader might not find elsewhere that definitely add value to the text overall.

This is my third book review for my Classic Film Reading Challenge.

Thank you to the University Press of Kentucky for sending me a digital copy for review. And thank you to the Greater Boston Film Classics Club for inviting me to host a virtual discussion on this book!

Soundies: The Ultimate Collection and interview with curator Susan Delson

 

For anyone who loves the 1940s music, dance and overall style, discovering Soundies is an absolute treat. What is a Soundie you may be asking? The Soundie was a precursor to the music video. These bite-sized musical short films were the length of a song and featured performers singing, dancing and even acting out skits. Soundies were produced specifically to be played in a Panoram, a coin-operated jukebox with a small screen. These short musicals made on low budgets with up-and-coming talent and highlighted contemporary trends in pop culture. They gained momentum especially during WWII and eventually petered out after the war was over. To me each Soundie is a little window into a bygone era. 

Kino Studio Classics has blessed the public with the release of Soundies: The Ultimate Collection, a four disc Blu-ray set includes 200 Soundies as well as numerous introductions by curator Susan Delson, Media Conservationist Ina Archer as well as interviews with Soundies experts Matt Barton and Mark Cantor. A booklet inside includes essays as well as an extensive list of themes and individual Soundies in order of appearance. This list proved especially helpful to keep track.

Each disc features 6 themed with 8 Soundies each. The themes vary and an introduction helps put them into context. Themes include: trending song and dance forms, the WWII homefront, sexuality and subversiveness, urban and rural culture, Latin, Asian and African-American styles as well as a four-part Straight from the Panoram series which plays 8 different Soundies as they would be shown on a real Panoram.

My personal favorites from the set include: Swing for Sale, Hot Chocolate, Got a Penny for Benny, G.I Jive, Frim Fram Sauce, Four or Five Times, Paper Doll, He's a Latin from Manhattan, Time Takes Care of Everything and Ta Ha WaHhu Wa.

There is so much energy and vivacity in these Soundies that it seems a shame to watch them sitting down. I highly recommend getting up and dancing to the beat. A much more enjoyable way to experience these Soundies.

This set is an absolute winner. I love the packaging and design, the number of diverse selection, and the introductions that helped provided historical and cultural context. The Soundies themselves are of mixed quality depending on their source material but overall they look really fantastic on Blu-ray. I do wish the intros and interviews were a bit more higher quality in presentation. Otherwise I think this is an outstanding Blu-ray set and would make the perfect gift for a classic movie fan.

I'm thrilled to have interviewed the series curator Susan Delson. Check out the interview below:

Historian Susan Delson. Photo courtesy of Susan Delson

Interview with Curator Susan Delson

Raquel Stecher: As a cultural historian, how did you first become interested in Soundies?

Susan Delson: I came across Soundies while writing a previous book, Dudley Murphy, Hollywood Wild Card. It’s a film study and biography of a little-known director whose career crossed over from silent film to sound. Murphy had an adventurous career—from Ballet mécanique to The Emperor Jones—and closed out his Hollywood years by making ten Soundies in 1941.

I started by screening Murphy’s Soundies at the Library of Congress—there weren’t many on YouTube at that point. Then I discovered the breadth of the LC’s Soundies holdings, which are vast. And I was hooked.

Raquel Stecher: It's clear that a lot of thought was put into curating the collection of soundies into different categories for this blu-ray collection. Can you tell me a bit about how each program was curated and what you hope viewers will pay special attention to?

Susan Delson: I spent years screening and researching Soundies before I began writing my book, Soundies and the Changing Image of Black Americans on Screen: One Dime at a Time. I’d been a film programmer in the past, and right from the start, potential program themes were part of my Soundies thinking. I figured I’d present these films eventually, one way or another.

As I started programming the Kino Lorber set, I knew that I wanted to explore the full scope of the history embedded in the films—American history, African American history, entertainment history, and especially the change-making undercurrents in the culture back then. Soundies are a terrific way of getting into all of that—and at the same time, a lot of fun.

Each of the four [Blu-rays] in the set has its own theme, and those took shape pretty quickly: Introducing Soundies, Life in the Soundies Era, Musical Evolutions, and Women, Sexuality, and Gender.

There are six eight-film programs on each [Blu-ray], and all of them explore a different aspect of that disc’s theme. Except for the last program on each disc, called “Straight from the Panoram.” With those, I re-created an eight-film reel exactly as the Soundies Corporation released it back then—a program from a different year on each disc.

In response to your question, what I hope viewers will pay attention to is probably all of the above—the history, the cultural undercurrents, and above all, the fun. I also hope they discover lots of terrific performers they hadn’t known about. For me, that was one of the most exciting things about the whole project.

Raquel Stecher: I was particularly interested in the Soundies programs that reflected different aspects of American life during WWII. How do these Soundies give viewers a window into the culture of that era?

Susan Delson: There’s an immediacy to Soundies’ depiction of home-front life that you don’t generally get in Hollywood movies of that era. There’s nothing quite like Louis Jordan making sly double-entendres in Ration Blues to give you a sense of what living with wartime rationing might have been like. Or the Pretty Priorities (what a name!) doing a joking, patriotic strip tease to support scrap drives for the war effort in Take It Off.

In many films, there’s a creative, playful attention to personal style—this was the zoot suit era, after all. There’s a focus on dance, too, which makes sense when you realize that in the 1940s everyone danced, whether it was the foxtrot, the samba, or the jitterbug. There are some Soundies, like Hot Chocolate (“Cottontail”) or Swing for Sale, that people might have watched over and over just to pick up some new dance moves. 

The company behind Soundies—the Soundies Distributing Corporation of America— released a new eight-film reel every week. That’s over 400 films a year. They had to keep pace with popular culture, if only to keep the product flowing. The films had to be made quickly and cheaply. And with little or no time for rehearsal, let alone directorial vision, performers often had a lot of say in how they presented themselves on screen—much more than they might have had in Hollywood. With Soundies, you get a street-level, pop-culture perspective that you don’t get in mainstream media of the day.

Raquel Stecher: The blu-ray set features a diverse mix of Soundies with Black, Asian and Latino performers. I was particularly delighted to see Soundies featuring Dorothy Dandridge, the Mills Brothers, Ricardo Montalban, Nat King Cole and more. Can you talk a bit about why this was important and what you believe are some of the highlights of the collection?

Susan Delson: The diversity you’re talking about is really important. It’s what distinguishes Soundies from most of 1940s popular culture, and I’d say it’s the main concept behind the whole Kino Lorber set.

As you can see in the [Blu-rays], the Soundies Corporation was committed to presenting a diverse array of talent. Not out of idealism or altruism—they were a business and they absolutely wanted to make money. But the Soundies Corporation recognized an underserved audience when they saw one, and they knew there was a market for films that showed, on screen, a more complete view of who we were back then—Black, Latinx, Hawaiian, Asian, Eastern European, and more. There’s so much talent here that doesn’t appear on screen anywhere else during these years.

Among the highlights, I’d have to start with the first film on disc 1, Duke Ellington’s Jam Session. It’s by far the most popular Soundie online, closing in on 3 million YouTube views (mostly under the title “C Jam Blues,” which is the number the band is playing). Dorothy Dandridge’s Soundies are another highlight—she was 19 when she made them, and she’s absolutely incandescent.

Then there are the discoveries. The vocal harmony trio Day, Dawn, and Dusk has such a smart, sophisticated take on high culture, on American history, and gender play. We have three of their Soundies in the set, and every one is a gem.

My colleague Ina Archer, who does some of the on-camera intros in the set, calls another vocal harmony group, the Delta Rhythm Boys, the house band for Soundies. I agree. They really set the style for Soundies produced in New York, and they’re wonderful to watch.

Raquel Stecher: I have so many favorites from this collection, especially Hot Chocolate, Paper Doll, Frim Fram Sauce, Johnny Zero, etc. What are some of your personal favorites?

Susan Delson: All of the ones you mention are terrific. I also love Along the Navajo Trail, with John Shadrack Horace and Johnny Moore’s 3 Blazers. It’s the only country-western Soundie I came across that stars Black performers, and they’re great. Sticking with country-western, I also love Why Did I Fall for Abner, with Carolina Cotton and Merle Haggard. Everyone looks like they had a terrific time shooting that one—including the all-woman backup band, the Glee Gates Trio with two additional musicians. They’re terrific.

I also have a soft spot for Soundies that make me laugh, like A Little Jive Is Good for You and Operatin’ Rhythm. And just about all the films on disc 4 that explore women’s sexuality and gender play.

Raquel Stecher: What do you hope viewers will get out of watching Soundies: The Ultimate Collection?

Susan Delson: I hope the films will add some nuance and complexity to our thinking about the World War II years, beyond the “Greatest Generation” gloss. The culture back then was a lot more complicated and contradictory than people might think—emphasis on contradictory—and we see that in the films.

In my introductory essay in the [Blu-ray] booklet, I write that Soundies speak in multiple voices, and they don’t all say the same thing. For me, that’s a real plus. If there’s one thing I hope viewers take away from Soundies: The Ultimate Collection, it’s that our country is, and long has been, a place of multiple voices, cultures, and peoples. 

With these films, you really get the sense that as a nation, our diversity is our strength. And they make that point in a way that’s fun to watch and listen to. I hope everyone has as much fun with these films as I had in putting the programs together.

Amazon — Barnes and Noble — Deep Discount —Kino Lorber

Soundies: The Ultimate Collection Blu-ray is available from Kino Classics. 

Thank you to Kino Lorber for sending me a copy for review and to Susan Delson for granting me an interview!

The Classic Film Collective: Nazimova by Gavin Lambert

 This was originally published in the former The Classic Film Collective Patreon.

 

Nazimova: A Biography

by Gavin Lambert

University Press of Kentucky

Paperback ISBN: 9780813153421

432 pages

Amazon — Barnes and Noble

“When I first came to America I had so much luck it frightened me… And then the luck turned.” — Nazimova

With her dark and wild hair, her downturned eyes and her incredible confidence, Nazimova was bonafide star. This actress who made waves on stage and on the silent screen is the subject of Gavin Lambert’s 1997 biography, recently reissued in paperback by University Press of Kentucky.

Alla Nazimova was born Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon in Crimea, Russia in 1879. Nazimova came from a Russian Jewish family and suffered from severe neglect after her parents’ divorce. She sought solace with acting and became part of the Moscow theatrical scene. The author goes into incredible detail about childhood and teen years thanks to Nazimova’s own unfinished autobiography that he used as reference. Towards the end of her life she spent countless hours detailing her origin story but never got to write about what happened after the age of 17. Luckily, she left behind many other details in the form of correspondence and diary entries that the author had access to and references frequently throughout the book.

What made Nazimova so special as an actress was her stage and screen presence, her ability to play characters much younger than herself, her incredible memory, her attention to detail and her personal and professional networking skills. She was a master at both the technical and social aspects of being an actress. It was natural that Nazimova would make her way to Broadway. Despite her heavy accent which some criticized, Nazimova soon became a star in the New York theatre world.

Metro Pictures came around with an incredible offer: a contract that would make her one of the highest paid actresses in silent film and give her approval of the director, leading man and the script. The author goes into detail about each of Nazimova’s films. There is a lot of detail for her early Metro Pictures films, including WAR BRIDES (1916), Revelation (1918) and TOYS OF FATE (1918), all of which are unfortunately lost. When Metro Pictures moved to Hollywood, Nazimova followed suit. She made silent films with them until a terrible falling out led her to start her own production company. Now with complete creative control, she produced and starred in films like CAMILLE (1921) and SALOME (1924). By 1925, Nazimova had abandoned films for the New York stage. She returned to Hollywood in the 1940s with small roles in films like ESCAPE (1940) and BLOOD AND SAND (1941). In fact, her final role in SINCE YOU WENT AWAY (1944) was written specifically for her.

The crux of Lambert’s biography is Nazimova’s relationships with family, lovers and professional collaborators. Nazimova was queer and preferred to be in relationships with women. Her relationship with her common law husband Charles Bryant (they weren’t legally married but pretended to be so for many years) was a means to protect her professional image. He was also producer, actor and director for many of her films, which further gave Nazimova control over her projects. Lambert offers the reader many stories about key figures like June Mathis, Jean Acker, Rudolph Valentino, Natacha Rambova and many more. I was surprised to discover that much celebrated genre producer Val Lewton was Nazimova’s nephew! And of course, there are Nazimova’s homes including the The Garden of Allah and Who-Tok, both of which no longer exist although stories of these grand homes continue to be part of her legacy.

My biggest issue with Lambert’s biography on Nazimova is some of the outdated language. There are a few sexist and racist terms, direct quotations from people in Nazimova’s life, that I feel could have been nixed in the reissue. Fortunately, these are few and far between. There is quite a lot of details about Nazimova’s sex life but I felt it was done in a respectful manner. Lambert really does demonstrate how these relationships were key to her growth as a performer and were also how she navigated her social world.

Never salacious and always informative, Gavin Lambert’s biography captures the dramatic rise and fall of the late great Nazimova.

Thank you to University Press of Kentucky for sending me a digital copy of this book to review!